Recent advances in wireless network technologies have rapidly developed in recent years, as evidenced by wireless location area networks (WLANs), wireless personal area networks (WPANs), wireless metropolitan area networks (WMANs), and wireless wide area networks (WWANs), that is, cellular networks. A major impediment to their deployment, however, is wireless network security. For example, the lack of data confidentiality in wired equivalent privacy (WEP) protocol has been proven, and newly adopted standards such as IEEE 802.11i robust secruity network (RSN) and IEEE 802.15.3a ultra-wideband (UWB) are not fully tested and, as such, may expose unforeseen security vulnerabilities. The effort to improve wireless network security is linked with many technical challenges including compatibility with legacy wireless networks, complexity in implementation, and cost/performance trade-offs. The need to address wireless network security and to provide timely, solid technical contributions establishes the motivation behind this special issue.

This special issue will focus on novel and functional ways to improve wireless network security. Papers that do not focus on wireless network security will not be reviewed. Specific areas of interest in WLANs, WPANs, WMANs, and WWANs include, but are not limited to:

• Attacks, security mechanisms, and security services
• Authentication
• Access control
• Data confidentiality
• Data integrity
• Nonrepudiation
• Encryption and decryption
• Key management
• Fraudulent usage
• Wireless network security performance evaluation
• Wireless link layer security
• Tradeoff analysis between performance and security
• Authentication and authorization for mobile service network
• Wireless security standards (IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.15, IEEE 802.16, 3GPP, and 3GPP2)

Authors should follow the EURASIP JWCN manuscript format described at the journal site http://wcn.hindawi.com/index.html. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the EURASIP JWCN's manuscript tracking system at http://www.mstracking.com/wcn/, according to the following timetable.

Manuscript Due	October 1, 2005
Acceptance Notification	February 1, 2006
Final Manuscript Due	May 1, 2006
Publication Date	3rd Quarter, 2006

Guest Editors:

Yang Xiao, Computer Science Division, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, USA

Yi-Bing Lin, Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan

Ding-Zhu Du, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA

Refereeing:

If you are willing to referee paper(s) for this special issue, please visit the following URL:http://www.mstracking.com/wcn/si/si.php?si=WNS. All referees shall receive a complimentary copy of the special issue upon publication.